


You and I and Plastic Flowers

by LadyLondonderry



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Bed & Breakfast, Fae & Fairies, First Meetings, M/M, Magic, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 22:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10863060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLondonderry/pseuds/LadyLondonderry
Summary: The mug cracks. It makes a horrible ceramic clacking noise. Whatever is inside is thrown into a frenzy, and Louis finds he can barely keep it still. This was not well thought out. He should have just let the bloody thing have control of the house. That would have been a better option.He's still trying to formulate a plan of how to get the thing outside when the whole container gives a mighty jerk to the right, throwing him completely off guard, and tumbles onto the tile of the kitchen floor below.





	You and I and Plastic Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written as part of an ongoing challenge. We each select random numbers and are given a specific emotion from the book 1000 Feelings For Which There Are No Names. To read the other fics written in this challenge, [click here](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/ShortFic_Challenge_For_Which_There_Is_No_Name/works), or you can find the masterpost on tumblr [here](http://lululawrence.tumblr.com/post/159679804243/1000-feelings-for-which-there-are-no-names-prompt).

Of all the places Louis thought that he would end up in life, living in a small old house in a small old suburb was not anywhere on his list.

Don’t get him wrong, it’s a pretty nice neighbourhood, if a quiet one. Filled mostly with grandparents who have their grandchildren over on Sunday afternoons. One thing can certainly be said for these old people; they love maintaining their gardens. Next to Louis’s tiny garden space with his single potted basil plant residing beside the door, all the other houses on the street are filled with flowers in blues and purples and reds and yellows, trellises and vines and cute little decorations that Louis has recently learned are called fairy gardens. They’re the sorts of gardens that he would have loved to hide in when he was little, all nooks and crannies, pulling off the flower petals and making little colourful stacks of them that he would inevitably be chastised for later.

He’s recently been invited round for tea in a few of his neighbours’ houses, and their well decorated rooms also make him feel rather ashamed of his own sparse furnishings. He reasons that his own home reflect the meagre 24 years he’s lived, compared to his neighbours who have built up a lifetime of memories to store.

Still, all things considered he would _not_ like to completely disgrace his neighbours by being the odd one out. That’s why he bought the basil plant in the first place. Sure, originally it had been the basil plant, the lavender plant, the tomato plant, the pansies, the snapdragons and the roses… But if Louis has learned one thing by moving into this house it’s that he doesn’t have a green thumb.

So - the basil plant sits alone in his doorway. Every morning when Louis leaves for work, he leans down and gives it a bit of water and says a prayer over it that the Lord will help it to live another day.

“Louis-” old Mrs. Beaton calls to him one morning as he’s leaving his house.

“Hello Agatha!” Louis calls back – as she has requested numerous times that he call her that. “You’re out and about early today!”

She laughs good naturedly. “I believe you’re actually one of the last ones out and about, Mister Tomlinson,” she tells him.

Louis looks at his watch – eight forty – and looks back at Mrs. Beaton with mock horror. “I’m appalled by every one of you,” he tells her.

“Oh of course you are,” she teases, “and I’m sure you’re equally appalled by the lot of us being in bed by about nine, I would assume you and your raucous friends would quite look down on that.”

“I mean, I do enjoy a good early bedtime meself every now and again,” Louis concedes. “But what can I help you with, Agatha? Just come to admire my lovely basil? I’m considering naming him.”

Mrs. Beaton looks down at the potted plant in what Louis could only describe as pure pity. Rude. “I may have heard that you’re looking for ways to brighten up your garden,” she tells him conspiratorially.

Louis looks this way and that down the empty street before leaning down to her level and whispering, “Word does travel fast around here…. Do you have _suggestions_?”

“In fact I do,” she says before drawing a piece of paper out of – oh dear – the front of her shirt. “This store right here is just what you’re looking for I think.”

He takes the paper from her and sees a shakily drawn map (bless Mrs. Beaton and her arthritis) leading to a location dubbed “The Flower Corner”.

“Why thank you,” he tells her, folding it up and sticking it into his back pocket. He rather feels like he’s just done a drug deal like in the movies. “I very well might give them a visit. Will they be open when I get off work, do you suppose? Or is it the sort of place where the owners go to bed as early as you all do?”

“Oh I’m sure they’ll be open,” Mrs. Beaton says. “After all, they’re all young whippersnappers like you who work there.”

“Ah yes, young whippersnappers like me,” Louis says gravely. “What _are_ they all thinking.”

\-- 

He doesn’t initially plan on visiting The Flower Corner directly after work, but after getting out from a horribly frustrating and dull meeting, Louis feels he needs something to lighten the mood. He sets the now quite wrinkled map on his dash, because Google Maps doesn’t even seem to recognise this store as a place, and makes his way into the oldest part of town, where the houses are taller than the are wide and all the shops have hand painted signs above the doors.

The Flower Corner is down a quiet side street and when Louis parks he briefly wonders if old Mrs. Beaton really was trying to sell him drugs rather than a few new plants. The building looks ominously old and creaky, the siding either painted brown or rusted to that colour, and the one large window in the front offers only a view of an entirely black curtain.

The only reason Louis gets out of his car at all is the small sign on the door reading “Open!” with a number of small funny looking flowers painted in the corners.

Pushing the door inward, it gives a horrible screech at being disturbed.

“Hello!” a jovial voice greets him, and suddenly Louis finds himself walking into what feels like a child’s play room.

There’s plants all over the place, yes, but there’s also so many little odds and ends – large colourful mushrooms with doors in the front, flamingos in every corner in various poses and shades of pink, elf-looking creatures staring glassy-eyed in front of themselves, small pieces of furniture that can’t possibly be considered anything other than doll-sized – it’s almost overwhelming trying to take it all in.

“What can I help you find today?” asks a man sitting at a green desk covered in small pond-looking sculptures. He looks terribly out of place with a black and white striped shirt and page boy hat on his head.

“Interesting place you have here,” Louis remarks, staring rather dazedly at some mermaid statues in various states of undress. “I was recommended this shop for my front garden. It’s, um, not doing too well at the moment.”

“Well we’ve got plenty of plants around if you want to take a look,” the man informs him, pointing around the eclectic space to where actual living things are stored among all the brightly painted pieces. “But of course, our specialty is more in decorations. Handy things! Ceramic almost never dies on you the way greenery does.”

“No, I suppose not,” Louis muses. A row of colourful things near the back have caught his attention, and he wanders over to find a large collection of pinwheels in different sizes and colours. They remind him of some that his mum kept in the pots on the windows when he was little, and he finds himself picking out quite a few.

He purchases another basil plant that he finds in a corner under a sun lamp, along with a potted pansy (which he vows will live more than a week this time) and the pinwheels. The man at the till (his nametag reads Niall) gives Louis a knowing glance, which Louis finds quite odd because he’s not sure what there is to know.

When he leaves, he hears Niall speaking in low tones, and someone else speaking back, although he’s relatively certain it’s only Niall and the collection of small simulated ponds on his desk. He chooses not to think too much on it.

– 

The sky is darkening by the time he arrives home, an hour before sunset is supposed to happen. Threatening grey clouds cover the sky and Louis hurries inside to close the kitchen window he’s certain that he left open.

It’s a last minute thought to run back outside with the pinwheels. According to his weather app the storm brewing up is going to be a big one, and Louis suddenly gets the whimsical idea in his head of watching the pinwheels spinning outside his front window as the stormy breezes pick them up.

He’s ended up buying four rainbow ones, and now out in the whistling wind blowing his hair into odd spikes, he goes around to all the pots of dead flowers and carefully plants a pinwheel in each one, pushing them as deep as they can go in the hope that they won’t simply get blown away.

Just as the first drop hits his nose he makes a run for the indoors again, slamming the door behind him as if some sinister force is after him (it isn’t). He walks over to the bay window and admires his work for a minute, watching the colourful little wheels spinning like mad, before deciding it’s a good night for readymeal curry. Which he happens to have.

(It’s about all he happens to have).

– 

The storm only gets worse, and Louis starts to wonder if the house is prone to leaking. He’s not been here long enough to weather a major storm and he’s rather convinced he’s going to wake up in the morning to find the conservatory underwater, or a stream running down the stairs.

That being said, he’s sprawled on the settee with the last of a curry, a fluffy blanket and a new episode of Gogglebox. It’ll take hell and high water to get him to move at this point, and only one of the two is being threatened on him at the moment.

The storm outside shows no signs of letting up, and Louis really doesn’t want to make the trek up two floors to his bed, so he eventually turns on 4+1 to watch Gogglebox again until he drifts off.

– 

The level of panic that shoots through Louis when he’s awoken by the sound of his front door banging open and hitting the wall can only be described as _too much_. He sits up with a start and, completely bypassing the fact that his door is wide open and the gale outside is pouring in, he brings the blanket up to his face and simply _screams_ into the material.

It’s cathartic. He’s learned from years being a primary school P.E. coach that yelling it out is the best way to release that adrenaline that’s coursing through the veins.

When he’s let that all out, he lowers the blanket and looks up at the door. It’s wide open. There’s rain coming in everywhere. What the fuck.

“Shit,” Louis curses, setting the blanket aside and jumping up. Except when he puts his feet down on the floor, one goes straight into the remains of his curry. “Fuck,” he curses, hopping over to the door and simultaneously trying to close the door with one hand while scraping the bottom of his foot on the step outside the door with the other. He gets the door mostly closed, only enough room for his leg to stick out, and lets his foot get rained on a bit, but then when he pulls it in and shuts it with a slam, he startles to realise that the lock he was expecting to click closed _isn’t even on the door any more_.

“Shit,” Louis says again. “Fuck. What the fuck. What the shit.”

The lock is on the ground, although it doesn’t look damaged. Louis’s foot is soaking wet. There are drops of curry sauce along the floor. There’s rainwater everywhere.

_I’m calling in sick tomorrow,_ Louis thinks to himself.

He makes his way over around the corner toward the kitchen, leaving left-foot prints as he goes. The sound of thunder rolls through as he goes. With it comes a sound that makes Louis pause – a clattering that seems to be coming from the kitchen in front of him.

Did an animal get in when the door was open? That would be just Louis’s luck. They’re probably eating his Coco Pops. Goddamn it he doesn’t want to go to Tesco’s again this week, every time he goes he comes home with a ridiculous number of sweets that seem sensible to buy while he’s in that fluorescent liminal space.

He really doesn’t want to go check it out. He wants to go upstairs to bed and pretend this has never happened. But this is what being an adult is like, he supposes. Dealing with wild animals that get into the kitchen and cleaning the curry off of the floorboards.

He takes a deep breath and pops his head into the kitchen. It’s bright. It’s silent. It seems undisturbed.

He warily moves farther into it. The only thing that seems amiss is the sugar dish next to his teapot, which has been knocked over and there’s a small pile of sugar next to it, but that seems more like the sort of thing Louis would have accidentally done after a nigh out, rather than a wild animal who’s gotten stuck.

He’s about to dismiss it as something the storm must have knocked over out back, but then there’s another loud clatter and Louis’s head whips around to the big ceramic utensil holder, full of wooden spoons and spatulas and a whisk which all seem to be _moving_.

Shit. There’s something in the utensil holder. It’s probably a small animal. A possum. Or a baby pigeon. He’s not equipped to deal with this. He needs to call his mum.

But no. It’s the middle of the night. His mum is sure to be asleep and she’ll worry about that midnight missed call in the morning (and so she’ll call him and wake him up and everyone will be confused and cranky at that point).

He looks around for something, anything, and finds only an unwashed mug from earlier in the evening. Okay. He can work with this. Mug in one hand, he stalks over toward the utensil holder (which is making little scratching sounds) as if he’s a lion hunting his prey. Or, maybe a cheetah. Some sort of large cat, certainly.

Before he can think too much about it (because he _will_ chicken out), Louis reaches out and grasps the utensils in his free hand, pulls them out and slams the mug over the top of the holder.

The mug cracks. It makes a horrible ceramic clacking noise. Whatever is inside is grown into a frenzy, and Louis finds he can barely keep it still. This was not well thought out. He should have just let the bloody thing have control of the house. That would have been a better option.

He's still trying to formulate a plan of how to get the thing outside when the whole container gives a mighty jerk to the right, throwing him completely off guard, and tumbles onto the tile of the kitchen floor below.

Louis doesn't have a blanket to scream into here. He's not in the least bit sure what to do with all the adrenaline coursing through him for the second time in a single night. He feels highly aware of his surroundings (a kitchen, broken ceramic, _his formerly favourite mug now smashed_ ), and at the same time woozy. Without putting much thought into it, he does what his instincts tell him to do. 

He sprints for the pantry, and closes the door behind him.

It takes a bit for his eyes to adjust to the light, and he brushes a fair number of protein bars onto the ground while trying to situate himself. When he's finally calmed down and his eyesight has adjusted to the point where he can read the logo on the ancient Weetabix box at eye level, he turns back to the door and , carefully, pushes it open just a crack.

Of course, this house and everything in it being ridiculously old, the door gives way with a great _creeeeaaaaak_ that Louis figures could wake the dead. If they hadn't already woken up from the storm. Louis wonders if the dead are light sleepers. He thinks now might not be the time to wonder such things, but it's a good question to store away for later,

Taking a deep breath, he moves over to look out the crack between the door and the wall, to surmise what sort of animal has invaded his home.

He's met, not with a furry animal of any sort, but with two large, green, concerned eyes.

Louis screams.

He knocks over more protein bars _and_ the box of Weetabix.

Whomever is on the other side of the door does not scream. They continue to look concerned. Louis screams some more. He's really not good with adrenaline. He needs a blanket.

When he finally calms down, and moves on from screaming to deep breaths, the owner of the large, green, concerned eyes speaks.

“Where is Mary?”

The name takes a moment to register. He didn't know her by that name of course.

“She- she passed away,” Louis stutters.

The eyes go from concerned to sad. “Oh,” they say. “I didn't… when I saw the garden I thought she was back…” 

Whomever it is draws back and Louis's view is of an empty kitchen again. He cautiously opens the door enough to step out, only to find the whole room completely deserted.

“Hello?” He calls tentatively. “Are you still here?”

No answer. He examines the smashed ceramic still on the ground, rather worried that if he looks up again the person will be there again. Rather worried they won't be.

“Did you regularly break into the house when she lived here then?” He asks into the silence. “Were you friends?” A thought occurs to him that makes him grimace. “You weren't, like, together or something, were you? Only she was a bit old, and Grandpa Will only passed away a few years ago, it seems a bit quick for her to move on…” He trails off, realising that he's begun speaking more to himself than to whomever is invading his home.

But then a voice, a higher pitched one than before and alarmingly close, asks, “Are you her grandson?”

Louis whirls around and is still confronted with an empty room. “How many _are_ you?” He asks in frustration. “Of course I am, been here every weekend since I was born, haven't I? Still don't know who you all are or why you're here!”

Lightning flashes outside, at the same moment that thunder rolls through so loud that the worst of the storm is directly overhead, Louis jumps and swears he's getting heart palpitations at this point.

He puts his hand to his chest and closes his eyes, taking a few deep breaths. If whomever is here is planning on murdering him they're going to do it whether his eyes are closed or not so he's honestly past caring.

Before his breathing has evened out, he jumps just a little again as a warm hand grasps his and gently pries it away from his chest. His eyes fly open as he feels something bordering on hot placed in his hands.

First he looks down - his mug! His broken mug, in one piece again and full of what looks and smells like tea? Then he looks up - the green eyes are there again, and with them are full pink lips, long, soaking wet hair, and an unreadable expression.

Along with the most ridiculous green outfit louis has ever seen.

It's sort of spandexy and sort of sparkly and in some places rather scandalous. He thinks he feels the adrenaline kicking up again. Oh god he's going to die of a heart attack before this stranger has the chance to do it.

He feels two (large, warm) hands encompass his own and raise the mug to his lips. “Calming,” the man in front of him says. “Drink. It'll help.”

Well of course it's calming, it's _tea_ , Louis wants to tell him. Still, he takes a sip and a deep breath after. It tastes like his normal Yorkshire but with something else added, something sweeter.

“Did you drug me?” He asks with a frown.

The man furrows his brows. “Don't be ridiculous,” he says. “I just un-drug you, if anything. You had enough excitement coursing through you to kill a small horse.”

Excitement. “Adrenaline?”

“Whatever it is you call it.”

Louis takes another sip. “Are you saying I'm bigger than a small horse?”

The man smiles. “I see it's working already! Much easier to think without all that nasty extra stuff in the blood now, isn't it?”

“Still think you've drugged me,” Louis says. If this is what being drugged feels like though, he'd like rather more of it. He feels like his mind is much clearer than it has been in a long time. “You also still haven't told me who you are. Or who that other person is. _Or_ why you're here.”

“I'm Harry,” the man says. “And I'm alone.”

“No you're not,” Louis argues. “I heard another person. Their voice was higher.”

Harry sighs. “You're going to make me do this all at once, aren't you.” He shakes his head. “Fine. Hello Louis, nice to meet you. I'm not human.”

“Well you're certainly going for an alien look with clothes like that,” Louis fires back.

“These are _fashionable_ where I come from,” Harry argues. “And I'm not an alien, I'm fey.”

“Sorry,” says Louis. “I didn't quite catch that. You're gay? Because I am too mate, and I definitely don't dress like that _or_ change my voice. Oh, are you a drag queen? That still doesn't explain why you're in my house.”

“I am not a drag queen,” Harry argues. “I am gay but that's not what I'm saying. I'm _fey_ , I'm a fairy.”

“You what, mate.” Louis says, voice flat. “You're not drugging me enough for this.”

“I'm not-” Harry sighs a very put-upon sigh. “This is the bit I hate. Alright, keep a close eye.”

He turns around and Louis is faced with more of the sparkly spandex (and a very nice little butt if he does say so himself). 

“Between my shoulder blades,” Harry says over his shoulder. “I'm only doing this once, it's embarrassing.”

Louis looks between his shoulder blades, at a little patch of skin that's bare from the spandex, not at all sure why he's looking there until suddenly, for only a moment, a shimmer comes out, like a piece of clear plastic almost reflecting the light in little rainbows. It's ever so briefly but it looks almost like two large leaves protruding from his back, iridescent and reflective, and then it's gone again.

Harry turns back around.

“You're a fey,” Louis says. 

“I am.”

“How did you get in my house?”

“Front door.”

Louis gives him a look. The kind of look that would send his sisters running.

“I came in through the lock! Mary made a little passage for me decades ago!”

“The lock is tiny,” Louis says slowly. Then he breaks into a huge grin, eyes lighting up. “You can get tiny! I want to see!”

Harry reaches for his cup. “I think you've had enough of that, it's taking you from calm to giddy.”

“No,” Louis pouts, clutching at the mug. “My tea. I want to see you tiny. You broke into my house. You owe me.”

“I did _not_ ,” Harry argues. “Mary lets me wait out the storm here if I'm passing through. She always has. But fine, don't have any concern for _my_ wellbeing or anything.”

Harry is smiling, clearly grousing a bit. Louis grins.

Then, with a pop, suddenly Harry's not there anymore. Louis would generally jump, but whatever he's drinking has calmed his nerves considerably. “Where'd you go?” He asks instead, looking around.

“Right here,” Harry says, his voice a few tones lighter and close to Louis's left ear. 

Louis turns to his left. Harry's not there.

“Look left a bit more,” Harry says and Louis cranes his neck until he finds Harry, small enough to sit in the palm of his hand, hanging onto his shoulder. Louis laughs delightedly.

“I'm going to turn back now,” Harry says. “Because I'm quite tired and was expecting to go to sleep, not get crammed between a jar and a teacup.”

With another pop he's in front of Louis again, and Louis is looking with awe at the cup in his hands. “You fixed this!” Louis accuses him.

“Yes,” Harry says. “Should I not have?”

“This is my favourite mug!” Louis tells him with a frown.

“Not seeing the problem yet,” Harry trails off.

Louis looks up at him with a very serious look on his face. “You're soaking wet and I tried to trap you in a cup and then you made me tea! I'm trying to open a Bed and Breakfast here and you're my very first guest and I've been terribly rude to you!” He feels outraged on Harry's behalf. “Come on, we're starting over here. You're clearly not leaving until the storm is over, at least not dressed like that - and I bet you get blown all over the place while you're tiny like that.”

“I don't, actually-”

“So you're going to come upstairs to the guest bed with me and I'm going to make sure you're treated right this time.”

Which is how, six months before he even managed to put a sign in the door, Louis has his first B&B guest.

“She wanted me to keep the house,” Louis tells him the next morning over a breakfast of weetabix and milk (milk being the only thing left in his refrigerator). “She said it had to stay in the family. Didn't bother to tell me why or anything.”

“She'll have left a book somewhere,” Harry says. After a shower his hair is becoming soft and fluffy and Harry rather wants to play with it. “It's been a fey stop for centuries, almost every house on the street is.” He runs a hand through his hair. Louis would like to do that. “She told me to come visit in the spring, crafty old woman probably meant for me to be the first one to find you.”

“Hey,” Louis chides lightly. “You can't talk about my Nan like that.”

“I can talk about her however I want, she made me clean her gutters every time I was over in return for staying. Honestly, near boundless magic and all she cares about are _gutters_.”

“They are looking a little shabby…” Louis says thoughtfully. 

Harry shoot him a glare. 

“Kidding! You pay to stay here? I thought it was sort of an honour just to host fey or whatever.”

Harry nods. “It's now we work. Each stay earns one favour. _Not_ the same as genie wishes, mind you. We work in tricks rather than full magic.”

Louis thinks. “I don't need my gutters cleaned,” he says and Harry lets out a sigh of relief.

“I want my favour to be for you to come back,” Louis decides. The tea last night that calmed his nerves are long gone, and his heart rate picks up at the idea of being so forward. Still, when he meet Harry's eye he sees a smile there, and can't help but smile back.

“I suppose I can do that,” Harry says. “I should be passing through again in less than a week, and old Mrs Beaton across the street complains that I snore.”

— 

Harry tells him at one point that he never thought he'd become a local fey, but sometimes you find someone worth it.

He stops in once a week for several years, and by the time Louis has had the B&B doors open for a few months they're sharing goodbye kisses in the early morning.

By the five year anniversary of the B&B opening Harry's staying more than he goes, and the guests tend to leave reviews that include the terms “magical” and “something special” and “if you get lucky you'll see the cute boyfriend with the weird clothes”.

By the seven year anniversary, the B&B has two names listed on the website instead of one.

And by the one hundredth year, those names haven't changed and the neighbors tell stories about the couple that never seem to age and their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren who play in the back garden and the cleanest gutters in the neighbourhood.

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me at [LondonFoginaCup](londonfoginacup.tumblr.com) on tumblr! And reblog the fic post [here!](http://londonfoginacup.tumblr.com/post/160487920084/you-and-i-and-plastic-flowers)


End file.
